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Fears for Arctic explorer marooned on drifting ice

FEARS are growing for the survival of Pen Hadow, the British explorer who is marooned on an ice floe after he became the first person last week to reach the north pole unsupported from Canada, writes Will Iredale.

Yesterday he ran out of food apart from a few nuts, dried fruit and some chocolate that are all he has left to sustain him in the world’s most unforgiving environment.

On Thursday the battery of his satellite phone expired and he has no way of communicating with the outside world except for a beacon device that transmits weather signals.

Hadow, 41, has been stranded in his tent on drifting ice since he arrived at the pole on Monday. He is waiting to be picked up by an air support crew from a base 690 miles away, but bad weather has delayed a landing.